Today, the Honest Elections Project filed a brief in the Tennessee Supreme Court, supporting the state of Tennessee against an effort by activists to use the courts to rewrite duly enacted election law.
Tennessee is one of sixteen states to encourage in-person voting by requiring voters to have a valid reason to vote absentee. Under Tennessee law, older voters, voters who are sick, and voters who will be absent on election day may already cast absentee ballots; all other voters can cast votes early, or in person on Election Day. Tennessee opted to avoid the sort of sweeping election changes that have led to serious voting problems elsewhere, including New Jersey and Washington, D.C., but activists including the ACLU sued seeking a judicial rewrite of state law. A lower court ruled in their favor and declared that the state must extend absentee voting to all voters, and the state appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court.
“Voters do not need to choose between preserving their own health, or the health of our democracy, but that is exactly the false choice being pushed by the activists who brought this lawsuit. A hasty, court-imposed transition to all-mail elections opens the door to confusion, chaos, and malfeasance, as we have already seen this year,” said Jason Snead, executive director. “Tennessee law allows sick and elderly voters to vote absentee, and affords other voters options to vote early. For those choosing to vote on Election Day, the state has developed new procedures to protect the health of voters and poll workers. Activists are free to disagree, but they shouldn’t run to courts to impose their agenda when lawmakers reject it.”
Click here to read the entire brief.